Goat marketing study was conducted in eleven districts with the objectives of exploration the existing goat marketing system in western hills of Nepal. The methodology of the study was households survey, Rapid Marketing Appraisal and use of secondary data. Some of the marketing centers are at the village level, catchments, terminal level markets and district headquarters. There are some marketing agents dealing with the goat marketing from village to the municipalities. Goat marketing agents mainly found farmers and middlemen at the village level and catchments markets. In terminal markets mainly wholesalers and middlemen were involved where as in district headquarters and municipalities middlemen, wholesalers and butchers were dealing the goat business. 59.3% respondents believed that middlemen visit in the village for goat marketing. Almost all farmers sell their goats on the basis of estimated price. Major constraints on goat marketing were lack of public goat marketing centres, lack of communications about goat marketing and lack of infrastructure etc in all the domestic markets. In the western hills of Nepal main goat marketing centre was found in Pokhara sub municipality where traders/whole sellers bring their goats to sale from different catchments. Government has the provision of establishing new goat marketing centers in each VDCs and district headquarters.

An experiment was done on weaned piglets at Piggery Research Unit of Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tarahara, Sunsari, NARC, during 6 January 2019 to 5 May 2019 for 120 days after adjustment period of seven days. Twenty piglets, after weaning at 4-6 months of age were allocated into four treatments, each with 5 replications by using Completely Randomized Design. Four types of diets were used as treatments. Bakery waste was not incorporated in the control group diet (T1) whereas in the diet of T2, T3 and T4 maize as an ingredient was replaced by 25, 50 and 75% with bakery waste, respectively. Concentrate mixture was provided in adlib amount twice a day and refusal was measured in next morning while body weight gain was measured at 15 days interval. The findings revealed that highest total body weight gain was observed when maize was replaced by bakery waste (50%) (T3).But the total body weight gain was statistically similar (p>0.05) among the treatments group. The average daily gain was also highest when maize as an ingredient was replaced by bakery waste 50% (T3) with the gain of 325 g/day. Total feed intake during experimental period was highest for the same treatment. Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of entire (120 days) experimental period was also statically similar (p>0.05) for all treatments (1kg body weight: 2kg feed). The findings thus suggested that replacement of maize as an ingredient by bakery waste in piglet diet could be beneficial if it is replaced by 50% compared to 25% or 75% inclusion. Further in depth research is required to assess the effectiveness of replacing maize and other important ingredients with bakery waste before recommending this practice to the piglet growers.

Bhimal (Grewia optiva) is a fodder tree mostly found in mid hills of mid and far western region of Nepal. Bhimalcould constitutes one of the main livestock green fodders, especially for goats when fresh green fodder become limited during the winter dry season. However, the feeding value of Bhimalleaveson growth performance of castrated goats probably has not been evaluated so far. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to evaluate theeffect of Bhimalleaves feeding ongrowth performance of castrated male goatsfor 90 days.Altogether 16 growing castrated male goats of same breed, age and body weight were selected and equally divided into four treatments T1, T2, T3 and T4 with four replications by using Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Fourtypesof experimental diets wereprepared having various levels (0 to 100%) of Bhimalleaves as fodder. Experimental animals of Treatment 1 were fed with seasonal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, Treatment 2 with 100% Bhimal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, Treatment 3with 75% Bhimal fodder + 25% seasonal fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture, while Treatment 4 with 50% Bhimal fodder + 50% season fodder + 100 g concentrate mixture.All diets were fed ad-lib andexperimental animals had free access to drinking water. The dietsoffered and refusal was measured daily and weight change was observed fortnightly. The resultshowed that fodder intake (g/d/animal) and total dry matter intake (TDMI g/kg live weight) of goats differed significantly (P<0.01), but concentrate intake was not differed significantly (P<0.01) among treatments. The highest dry matter intake per animal /day was in Treatment 2 (52.75 g/kg live weight) followed by Treatment 4, Treatment 3 and Treatment 1 (51.7, 48.56 and 32.69 g/kg live weight, respectively).The average daily gain in body weight was observed highest in Treatment 2 (66.66 g/d) followed by Treatment 3 (31.66 g/d) and Treatment 4 (30.83 g). The growth rate was significantly (P<0.01) different among diet groups (P<0.05, P<0.01 and P<0.01 for 60, 75 and 90 days, respectively). In case of the feed conversion ratio, Treatment 2 had best ratio (8.79:1) than Treatment 1 (14.21:1), T3 (17.03:1) and Treatment 4 (18.59:1). The present response study showed thatbody weight in castrated male goatscan be increased significantly (P<0.05) implying that in winter season when other green forages are poorly available goat farming can be supported by Bhimalfodder tree. Keywords

An experiment was conducted on weaned piglets at Piggery Research Unit of Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS), Tarahara, Sunsari from 12 September to 4 December 2019 for 84 days after adjustment period of seven days. Twenty piglets after weaning of 4-6 months age were allocated into four treatments each with 5 replications by using Completely Randomized Design. Four type of experimental diets were composed for experimental piglets. Piglets of T1 (control) group were provided adlib concentrate mixture, 95% concentrate feed + 5% water hyacinth (WH) were given to T2 group, 90% concentrate feed + 10 WH were offered to T3 group and piglets of T4 group were fed 85% concentrate feed + 15% WH as per their daily requirement. Feed and water hyacinth intake were recorded daily and body weight gain was measured once a week. Experiment revealed that feed and WH intake was highly significant (p<0.001) among treatment groups. Highest total body weight gain was obtained in control group (T1) (37.66 kg) followed by T3 (34.91 kg) and T2 (34.25 kg) which was non-significant among diet groups. Similarly, highest average daily gain was observed higher for T1 (control) group (448 g /day) followed by T3 and T2 group (415.59 and 407.73 g/day, respectively). Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) was observed almost similar in all treatment groups (1:2 kg). Experiment suggested that concentrate mixture can be safely replaced with WH up to 15% without any adverse effect on body weight gain.

Teosinte (Euchlaena mexicana) is one of the most popular summer growing cereal fodder, rich in energy, dry matter (DM) and other nutrients, yet productivity of this fodder in Nepal has not been achieved as expected due to several important factors including cultivation management and sowing dates. An experiment was done during April to August 2018 at Directorate of Agricultural Research, NARC, Province-5, Khajura, Banke by using Split Plot design with the objective to identify the appropriate sowing dates in relation to possible combination of local fodder legumes with teosinte. It was expected that best possible combination of fodder legumes with teosinte would increase both herbage mass as well as quality aspects through increased productivity. Accordingly main plot treatments were sowing dates (April 18, May 3, and May 18) and sub-plot treatments were set as combination of fodder cowpea, lablab bean, and rice bean, each with teosinte, and sowing of teosinte as sole crop. Findings revealed that plant height, leaf length, tiller density of teosinte, and number of branches and trifoliate leaves of fodder legumes had contributed significantly to the cumulative herbage mass. Significantly highest green herbage and dry herbage mass (p<0.001) was obtained if these fodder species were sown in April 18 as compared to other dates of sowing. The combination of teosinte and cowpea had yielded significantly higher herbage mass (p<0.001) compared to others fodder species combinations. Preliminary findings of this research thus indicate the possibility of promoting mixed cultivation of teosinte with fodder cowpea in order to increase both herbage mass and quality.